This conference included six sessions that run over one afternoon and the following morning. A reception at the Stanford Faculty Club was held for all attendees at the end of the first day of the conference.

Conference Co-Chairs:

Kurt Wimmer (Covington & Burling LLP)Riaz Karamali (Sheppard Mullin)

Chair Emeritus:

Steve Tapia (DirectTV Regional Sports Networks)

Monday, May 21, 2012

The tutorial and accompanying panel will explore various models for monetizing content on the ever-evolving digital media platforms, and compare desktop, mobile, tablet and app monetization strategies, including targeted/location-based advertising, app sales, pay walls, in-app purchasing and other alternatives. We will also look at the legal issues being faced by lawyers as their clients seek to take advantage of these new avenues for monetization.

3. Social Responsibility on the Internet: Are New Digital Media Doing Enough to Protect Speech? (4:15 PM – 5:30 PM)

Publishers and broadcasters view their journalistic role as a trust, in which they conveyed to the public information to make well-informed decisions for self-governance. As new digital media become mainstream, is that mantle being taken up with sufficient vigor by tech companies? Should anonymous speech be protected? Should social media companies embrace First Amendment principles and defy global dictators, or is following local law justified even in repressive regimes? In short, is the public trust model valued by Silicon Valley -- and should it be?

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

4. How Social Media Works (8:30 AM -9:45 AM)

Social media has grown increasingly integrated across the Web as a whole, and the information flows and sharing protocols have become increasingly complex. "Likes" and other social plugins extend the social experience across the Internet, resulting in information-sharing that has attracted policymakers' concerns and businesses' commercial interest. This session will begin with a tutorial on how the technology of social media works, with a particular focus on technical issues surrounding privacy. The panel will then assess issues relating to privacy, intellectual property, regulation and innovation in the social media space.

All media now publish locally and defend globally. With the help of international experts, this panel will focus on protection of intellectual property across country lines, the potential for cross-border defamation disputes, and emerging new privacy schemes that promise to enshrine a "right to be forgotten" that could result in search engines and publishers alike being required to revise digital history.

A follow-up to last year's successful panel discussion on the same topic, venture capitalists, with a focus on digital media, will provide insights on near-term trends in the digital media industry.

This year, Chris O'Brien, Business & Technology Columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, will kick-off the session with commentary on short and medium-term trends in the digital media landscape and offer forecasts on what we may see in the years ahead. Then, the rest of our panel will chime in and address the impact on their ecosystem of recent major IPOs and the practicality and commercial viability of what they see coming down the road in the fast-moving information economy.